"Webbiquity" is about being everywhere online when and where buyers are looking for what you sell. It's what I help B2B clients achieve through a coordinated strategy of SEO, search marketing, social media, brand management, content marketing, and influencer relations, supported by the right marketing technology.

Despite the proliferation of “labor saving” devices and process automation software, marketers (along with their colleagues in pretty much every other business function) are busier than ever.

Of course, there’s always been pressure to do more with less—the definition of productivity improvement—but the mantra seems to have taken on almost religious status as the anemic, drawn-out recovery from the 2008 financial crisis drags on.

Combined with the widespread adoption of mobile technologies, enabling corporate professionals to work from pretty much anywhere, at any time (which they are therefore expected to do), the demands on our time feel unprecedented.

So how can you get at least some of that time back? How can you get more done without simply working even longer and harder?

Effective digital marketing is a team sport. It requires collaboration between skilled writers, graphic designers, content strategists, SEO experts, PR professionals, social media specialists, and marketing analysts. Every individual on the team needs a clear view of their deliverables, deadlines, and all the information they need in order to complete their tasks.

Such coordination can be challenging even when all team members work in the same office. It’s far more so in the more common situation today where team members include employees, contractors, and agencies, spread across multiple locations and even time zones.

While email is the most mature (that sounds better than “old,” right?) form of digital marketing, there’s no shortage of marketing technology innovation in this area. Both startups and established vendors continue to develop new capabilities for formatting, targeting, sending, and monitoring the impact of email messages, as well as functions like list building, inbox management, video email, deliverability, branding, custom email signatures and more.

According to recent research from Radicati Group, worldwide email volume will reach 207 billion messages this year—more than half of those for business. The typical business user receives well over 100 emails each day. Email marketers are challenged not only to make their messages stand out in that deluge, but also to provide relevant, actionable information to targeted recipients.

The primary cost of poorly crafted or mis-targeted emails is lost business opportunities, though in extreme cases it can damage a firm’s reputation as well. But the potential payoff for effective email marketing is substantial; email messages are more likely to be seen and acted upon by decision makers than online content, social media, or advertising.

Marketing automation software tools can be very helpful in making lead nurturing and sales acceleration efforts more effective—even if the category is badly misnamed. (Marketing can’t be automated.) But “segmented prospect email followup sequence design and automation,” while a more accurate label for the category, certainly isn’t as catchy.

Recent research shows that 63% of B2B companies that are growing faster than their competitors use marketing automation. These firms are also much more likely to be “best in class,” and most see sales pipeline opportunities increase by 10-15%.

Smaller firms often start off using email service providers, then implement marketing automation platforms as their prospect database grows, their segmentation becomes more complex, and they develop more granular marketing and sales content.